Dubai Souks and Boat Trip

As today was Friday there was not much open in the morning. The ubiquitous malls being the only things.

We went to City Central, which was a moderate sized one. Then we went back to the hotel for a rest and everyone slept about 1-2 hours. At 1600 the old town souks were supposed to open so at 1530 we took a taxi to that area. Amazing number of people milling on the shore near the water taxis. The taxis would come in bunches of 4 to 6 sometimes. We walked up the old souk which was so packed there really was no room for the wheel chair. Uschi and I both purchased pashminars. I also bought the rest of the bits for my head dress. I had already got a head dress band from the Emirates mall.

After watching the water taxis for a while we caught the "water bus" a more modern vehicle which Christine didn't need such skill to embark on. We just jumped on but had no tickets! The attendant took our money and ran to get some tickets for us. The water bus took us far along the Dubai creek to disembark near the Dubai local government buildings. We walked along the riverside for a while looking at the dhows then caught a land taxi (!) for the gold souk. The taxi pulled up in the middle of the road to collect us. At the lights about one block on the driver of the car behind got out and had a rant session with our driver. While it wasn't best parking etiquette I didn't think it was that bad.

We walked around the gold souk and even had a go at buying a small bracelet, but when I showed somereal interest the price suddenly went from 100 Dirhams/gram to 120! I had already seen 97 as the dayprice and the seller started to spin a line about "old" gold or maybe something from India. I declinedhis offer.

The three of us then wandered around the souk and found the main covered way. After about 1/2 an hour we had to leave to get back to the hotel so the evening cruise could pick us up.

They said about 1930, but turned up around 1915 . We got in a people mover with about 7 others, all males and apparently from the subcontinent. The people mover bought us back almost to the Gold Souk in Diera and we got on board the boat.

About half past eight there was a great cloud of black smoke which enveloped the boat as they started the engine. All the lights flickered out then back on again. The boat sailed up river to the Floating Bridge and then out to the mouth of the river about a 14km round trip I think, which took a little over 2 hours.